


Just as two drops of water are

by beyonces_fiancee



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Dancing, F/F, Longing, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:16:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5563168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyonces_fiancee/pseuds/beyonces_fiancee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She had shown Steven a small part of her greatest weakness in a weak moment: </i>But why would I ever want to go home, if you’re here? - My Pearl. - You’re wonderful…<i> But even with that lapse of judgment, the feelings racing sick and lonely all through her blue-flushed skin, she hadn’t shown him everything. The most bittersweet memories she savored when she was sure she was alone.</i></p><p>Pearl remembers Rose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just as two drops of water are

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Untitled (Pearl/Rose fan comic)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/165019) by StevenUniverseGrottenOlm. 



> Cross-posted [here](http://killmewithlesbians.tumblr.com/post/136096979529/stevenuniversegrottenolm-pffhahahahahaha). Unedited and un-beta'd.

She had shown Steven a small part of her greatest weakness in a weak moment: _But why would I ever want to go home, if you’re here? - My Pearl. - You’re wonderful…_ But even with that lapse of judgment, the feelings racing sick and lonely all through her blue-flushed skin, she hadn’t shown him everything. The most bittersweet memories she savored when she was sure she was alone. Like obsessively tracing the rough edges of the battle-scarred fracture across her gem before Rose could find her and weep for her, like she knew she would; like the ocean waves she and Rose would watch in the tide-rolling evenings, wearing midnight-blue pieces of glass down slowly from shards to river-smooth pebbles, and from pebbles to indigo sand; she held this remembrance of Rose so close, fondled it so often, she was sure she was beginning to wear it down.

And yet every time she summoned Rose into being, every time she saw the beloved face, the dark starry eyes crinkling in a smile, the hair tumbling in great careless curls around her peach-plump cheeks, the plush lips (electric-blue now instead of remembered soft skin-pink) moving to speak, to say her name— Pearl did not believe it possible, not really, that her projection of a heart could start so readily, that her light-created skin could shiver with desire, just as strong and just as transcendent the very first time. After five thousand years and more together, the few Earth seasons that had passed in a flutter of dead leaves offered little in the way of healing. She was grateful to herself that she had locked her door, made it so that she could be alone; so that the tears welling in her eyes went unseen when hologram-Rose spun her, once around, out, and back to hold Pearl close to her hologram heart.

The dance made Pearl feel like a live current was jumping between them, still, the rhythm of their bodies moving together as though they could read one another’s thoughts. She knew, she _knew_ the hologram-Rose wasn’t real, but here where no one could see, Pearl could almost believe in the big hands that circled her waist, the delicate footsteps leading her in a slow sway, the glow of the gem pressing against Pearl’s belly that was a memory of pink behind her closed eyelids. There was only one pair of eyes to see the blush rising in Pearl’s face, to smile at the trembling of Pearl's hands as she clutched Rose against her, starry twinkling eyes that gazed into hers and _saw_ her—understood her through and through— _knew_ her, kinder and sweeter and better than Pearl had ever known herself—and her lips were so close that Pearl could almost feel the warmth of their breath mingling, the feeling of Rainbow Quartz hovering over and within them like a benediction, as if it were the very last night she and Rose had spent together, longing streaking through her heart like a meteor shower—

—and Rose was gone in a hushed burst of light, and the waterfall towers sounded like trickling rain as Pearl sank to her knees. There was no one to see her as she wrapped her arms around herself, and whispered a memory for only her own ears to hear, a memory of something else she’d shared with Steven, clumsy and aching with what she had tried to say: _nothing else could fit so perfectly inside. For all this time, it’s been… incomplete._ The waterfalls poured out of thin air and vanished silently away.

**Author's Note:**

> from Wislawa Szymborska's "Nothing Twice":
> 
> _No day copies yesterday,_  
>  _no two nights will teach what bliss is_  
>  _in precisely the same way,_  
>  _with precisely the same kisses._
> 
> _One day, perhaps some idle tongue_  
>  _mentions your name by accident:_  
>  _I feel as if a rose were flung_  
>  _into the room, all hue and scent._
> 
> _Why do we treat the fleeting day_  
>  _with so much needless fear and sorrow?_  
>  _It’s in its nature not to stay:_  
>  _Today is always gone tomorrow._
> 
> _With smiles and kisses, we prefer_  
>  _to seek accord beneath our star,_  
>  _although we’re different (we concur)_  
>  _just as two drops of water are._


End file.
